Snorkelling and diving in Silfra

6 min read Updated October 2026 Compare all tours

Silfra lies inside Þingvellir National Park, about 50 minutes by road from Reykjavík. It is a fissure in Þingvallavatn, the largest lake in Iceland, which lies in a rift valley on the boundary between two tectonic plates. The park describes the visibility in the cold mineral water as astounding and gives the water temperature as 2 to 4 °C. The park’s own diving and snorkelling rules set the frame for every tour below, and the operators add their own limits on age, height and weight.

Snorkelling in a drysuit

Most visitors snorkel. After a briefing, the guide helps you into a drysuit over a warm undersuit, with a hood, gloves and fins, and the group drifts on the surface for about 45 minutes. The drysuit snorkelling tour that meets at Silfra takes three hours in all, with a PADI dive guide, hot drinks and cookies afterwards and GoPro photos included. You arrive on your own; parking and transport are not part of it. It sets an upper age limit of 69, and from 60 you need a doctor’s approval.

The snorkelling tour in groups of six keeps one PADI instructor to each group of six and gives you a heated van to change in. It takes 2.5 hours from the meeting point and includes the Silfra entrance fee. On the tour with a drysuit or wetsuit, you choose the suit when you book; it meets at the fissure, includes photos and hot chocolate and leaves the towel and warm clothes to you.

If you have no car, the snorkelling tour with a transfer option collects you in Reykjavík and stretches the outing to 5.5 hours, or you meet the guide at Þingvellir for a three-hour version. Its gear list runs from the drysuit and undersuit to gloves and boots, and the national park entry is covered. Reviews praise the guides and describe staying dry apart from cold hands and face. The poor reviews are about logistics: guests who drove themselves were sent back and forth between car parks looking for the group, and a family was turned away on the day because their English was not good enough for the briefing. Agree the exact meeting point before you set off.

Who can snorkel

The rules are much the same across the snorkelling tours. You must be able to swim and understand English, and most tours start at 12 years. Height and weight limits apply because the suits have to fit: the tours name ranges of about 145 to 200 cm and 45 to 120 kg, with small differences from one operator to the next. Glasses do not fit under the mask, so wear contact lenses. From the age of 60 or 65, depending on the tour, you need a medical form signed by a doctor, and, as the park notes, the operators require a medical screening form from everyone.

Your body stays dry inside the suit, but your face and hands are in water barely above freezing for the best part of an hour, and the park itself warns that diving here needs full protection against the cold. Reviews mention leaking suits now and then and a long wait at the entry point already suited up.

Scuba diving and freediving

Diving Silfra is for certified divers only. The park asks for a licence at Open Water level or equivalent and a drysuit certificate, or proof of at least 10 drysuit dives in the last two years confirmed in writing by an instructor. Solo diving is banned, and no dive may go deeper than 18 metres.

The Silfra diving tour runs in groups of six per instructor, with about an hour of briefing and gearing up and roughly 45 minutes in the water. You can meet at Silfra or take the pickup from Reykjavík, which makes it a five-hour trip; the minimum age is 17. For more space, the small-group scuba tour takes no more than three divers with a divemaster. It meets at the P5 car park, from where you walk about 400 metres to the entry and need to be able to carry heavy equipment that far. It starts at 18 years, and if the temperature drops below freezing it runs a single dive.

Freediving sits between the two. On the freediving tour you wear a 7 mm open-cell wetsuit, stay in the water for as long as you like and change in the dive van at the car park. It takes three hours and suits ages 12 to 65, with guides who speak English and Icelandic.

Silfra as part of a longer day

Several tours combine the snorkel with other sights. The Golden Circle tour with Silfra snorkelling picks up at set points in Reykjavík and adds Gullfoss and Geysir over ten hours; reviews mention little time at Geysir on short winter days. The tour that puts the snorkel first starts the day at Silfra and continues to Þingvellir, Geysir, Kerið and Gullfoss. The Silfra and Sky Lagoon combination is self-drive: you reach the fissure on your own and soak in the lagoon later the same day, with both entries included. The lava tunnel combination adds a guided walk through a lava tube; its reviews mention waits of over two hours between the parts.

Getting there and the time of year

If you drive, P5 Valhöll is the closest car park to Silfra. Þingvellir charges one parking fee per vehicle for the day, valid at P1, P2 and P5, and a camera at the P1 car park reads number plates. Several tours exclude this fee. The tours run all year, and the water temperature hardly changes with the seasons, but the air does. On 21 December the sun rises at Þingvellir at 11:21 and sets at 15:24, so a winter snorkel fits into a short day and the walk back to the car is cold. Bring a warm hat and dry layers for afterwards; our page on weather and what to wear has more. If you would rather see the park from dry land, the Golden Circle day tours all stop at Þingvellir.